Video: Ducati Desmosedici first test

Published: 13 September 2007

MCN road tester Michael Neeves has just sent the first pictures and video from Mugello, where he is today riding the Ducati Desmosedici RR.

The test was scheduled to take place at Misano one week ago, but had to be rescheduled due to a hurricane. Luckily the weather at Mugello is currently sunny. See Michael's opinions by watching this video, and add your own comments below.

Neeves said ‘I am not exaggerating, this bike feels exactly the same as the MotoGP bike.

It’s a really surreal experience ridingthe Desmo. It feels like a race bike and sounds just like a MotoGP bike but it has mirrors and that’s a hard thing to get your head around knowing that this bike is going to be used on the road.

The chassis is really, really stiff so unless you are pushing very hard indeed there’s little feel from the bike and the steering feels heavy. You’ve really got to ride the wheels off the bike to begin to get any feeling from it.

It’s incredibly fast, obviously, with 200bhp but the power is very friendly. There seems to be one continuous power band from nothing to 14,000 revs and you can even take corners a gear higher if you want to and the bike will still pull very hard out of the corner.

Not wanting to give too much away now so look out for the full report in September 19 issue.’